With a scene as focused on finding the next sound, it’s a wonder The Hold Steady and The National still command any attention whatsoever. “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” and “Rains of Castamere” are signs of their age catching up to them, if not so much in qualitative degradation as marketability fatigue.

“Might just let you meet ‘Ye.” – Jay-Z, “N*ggas In Paris” It is no coincidence that Jay-Z’s next album, the magnanimously titled Magna Carta Holy Grail, is coming out on June 24. The serendipity is not in the specific date, nor the bizarre decision to partner with Samsung to release the record early; no, serendipity […]

Brand New felt like growing up, so it did. Less than two years after its pop-punk debut Your Favorite Weapon declared the Long Island quartet simultaneously juvenile and well-cultured in the art of the plucky, well-intentioned cuckold, here was an astronaut on a barren landscape, barely casting a shadow. Deja Entendu was an aggressive move […]

Mumford & Sons and Kings of Leon present a fantastic economic opportunity for bands like Houndmouth. The New Albany, Indiana (just outside of Loiusville) quartet isn’t so different from the scads of folk-rock bands that have filled out festival lineups for the past half decade: Blitzen Trapper, The Lumineers, The Weeks, Band Of Horses, The […]

The So So Glos has quietly changed the course of the modern punk revival. The band did it without releasing a record (other than the roughshod duet of EPs Low Back Chain Shift and Tourism/Terrorism) or gaining even a modicum of hype. Instead, a trio of Brooklyn brothers (plus one) affected a phase shift from […]

Justin Vernon is nothing if not an aggressively safe songwriter. His more adventurous meanderings in indie rock with Volcano Choir and Gayngs aside, Vernon’s myriad projects all find him blending into the necessary stylistic surroundings required to garner favor in such genres. Some work better than others: his impressionistic indie-rock on Bon Iver beats the […]

When Sofia Coppola wed Thomas Mars, lead singer of indie-pop heroes Phoenix, it seemed very much an indie moment. Of course the wealthy, somewhat pretentious filmmaker obsessed with fuzzy indie rock and French New Wave would hook up with the roguishly attractive frontman of a French indie pop band currently undergoing a supernova of hipster […]